Taiwan

The High Speed Rail is the spine: 300 km/h from Taipei to Kaohsiung (Zuoying) in about 100 minutes, roughly NT$1,490 in standard class, with Early Bird fares up to 35% off when you book 8–28 days ahead; tourists can also buy a THSR Pass. The conventional loop line — run since January 2024 by the state-owned Taiwan Railway Corporation — serves the scenic east coast the bullet train doesn’t reach. In the cities, the MRT plus an EasyCard (or iPASS) is all you need: one tap covers metros, buses, local trains, YouBikes and the ubiquitous convenience stores, at about a 20% discount on Taipei fares.

From the airport, the Taoyuan Airport MRT runs into Taipei Main Station in about 38 minutes for NT$160. A car, with an International Driving Permit, earns its keep only for the east coast and the mountains — and the IDP rule is real, with some scooter shops refusing it outright. Taiwan is seismically active: the April 2024 quake was its strongest in 25 years, but strict building codes and phone alerts mean most tremors a visitor feels are minor.

Two Taiwan transport basics: the High Speed Rail is the west-coast spine (Taipei–Kaohsiung in ~100 minutes), and booking 8–28 days ahead gets Early Bird fares up to 35% off — or buy a THSR tourist pass. For everything else — city metros, buses, the slower loop train, even convenience stores — one stored-value EasyCard, tapped at the gate, does it all; pick one up at any MRT station or 7-Eleven on arrival.

Don’t write the east coast off because of it. The East Rift Valley between Hualien and Taitung — rice terraces, hot springs, cycling between two mountain ranges — is unaffected and under-visited, and the open Tianxiang–Xiangde section still gives you a taste of the marble canyon. If Taroko was the whole reason for the trip east, shift the weight to the valley and the coast.

Aim for October–November or March–April: dry, warm and clear, after the storms and before the extremes. Summer (June–September) is hot and humid, and the typhoon risk peaks July to September — a single storm can wipe out a day of ferries, mountain roads and night markets at a few hours’ notice. May–June brings the plum rains, short bursts of heavy rain rather than a washout.

Winter splits north from south. Taipei and the north turn cool, grey and damp; the south — Tainan, Kaohsiung, Kenting — stays mild and is the better winter bet. The cherry blossom is a genuine draw in its own window, late February into March, on Yangmingshan above Taipei and up in the Alishan high country.

The capital anchors it: Taipei 101, briefly the world’s tallest, with an observatory from NT$600; the National Palace Museum and its roughly 700,000 Chinese imperial treasures (NT$350); and Beitou’s sulfur hot springs a short MRT ride out. Just beyond, in New Taipei, are Jiufen, the lantern-lit hillside old town (often wrongly credited as the model for Spirited Away — Miyazaki never confirmed it), and Shifen, where sky lanterns go up over the railway line.

The centre and south open the trip up: Sun Moon Lake, with its ropeway and a cycle path CNN ranked among the world’s loveliest; Alishan, whose narrow-gauge forest railway fully reopened in July 2024 after some fifteen years, climbing to the sunrise and the sea of clouds; the old capital Tainan for temples and food; and Kenting’s beaches at the southern tip, Taiwan’s first national park, where the sea stays swimmable year-round.

• a typhoon day is declaredSkipthe coast, the mountains and the ferry islandsGoa Taipei museum day — the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101, a covered night market
• Jiufen is shoulder-to-shoulder at sunsetSkipthe main old street at its peak hourGogo on a weekday morning, or swap to Shifen and the Pingxi line for the sky lanterns
• Taroko was your reason to head eastSkipbuilding the trip around the closed gorge trailsGothe East Rift Valley, Taroko’s open Tianxiang–Xiangde section, or the north-east coast

Almost everyone’s trip is the west-coast spine — Taipei, the Alishan–Sun Moon Lake centre, and Tainan or Kaohsiung — because the High Speed Rail makes it effortless. The east (Hualien, the Rift Valley, Taitung) is slower and quieter on the conventional line, and the outlying islands are their own short trips: Penghu for beaches and basalt, Matsu for its "blue tears" bioluminescence, Kinmen for cold-war history, Orchid Island for the indigenous Tao.

The night markets — Shilin and Raohe in Taipei, Liuhe in Kaohsiung — are the defining experience: beef noodle soup, xiao long bao, stinky tofu, oyster omelettes, fried chicken steak and gua bao at NT$30–100 a plate, a full meal for around NT$150. The small-eats (xiaochi) culture is the whole point, and it’s cheap.

Two things the world now eats started here. Din Tai Fung, the soup-dumpling institution, began in Taipei in 1958 (as a cooking-oil shop) and turned to xiao long bao in 1972. And bubble tea was invented in 1980s Taiwan. For a sit-down benchmark, the Michelin Guide now covers Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and more — but the island’s real genius is the street stall and the 24-hour convenience store.

The language is Mandarin, with Taiwanese Hokkien widely spoken and Hakka and indigenous Formosan languages recognised alongside it; English is modest — better in Taipei, thinner in the south — but the island’s famous friendliness closes the gap. Shoes come off in homes (less so in most urban temples), queues are orderly, and tipping isn’t customary — some mid-range and up places add a 10% service charge instead.

The one genuine hazard is the traffic. Taiwan has around 13 million registered scooters, motorcycles figure in a majority of road deaths, and the pedestrian experience has been bluntly described as a "living hell" in the local press. Cross with care and never assume a green light means the turning scooters will stop.

Taiwan was the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage (May 2019), and Taipei Pride each late October is the continent’s largest. Time your visit around the calendar, though: at Lunar New Year (6 February 2027) much of the country shuts for the best part of a week, and during Ghost Month (the seventh lunar month, August in 2027) locals avoid big purchases, swimming and weddings.

Money: the New Taiwan dollar (about NT$31–32 to the US dollar); cards work in hotels and department stores, but cash still rules the night markets. VAT is 5% and already in the price — spend NT$2,000 in a day at a tax-refund store and you can claim some of it back on the way out. Plugs are the surprise: US-style Type A/B at 110V, so US gear plugs straight in while UK, EU and Australian travellers need an adapter and a voltage check. Tap water is treated but best boiled or bottled, given older building plumbing.

Taiwan is extremely safe — violent and street crime are rare, and the US State Department rates it Level 1, its lowest. Emergency numbers are 110 for police and 119 for fire and ambulance, with a 24-hour English-language tourist helpline on 0800-011-765.